Materialism (aka Non-materialists in denial)

[Yahweh]

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If a Nagelian candidate for the NMC were to prove capable of passing basic neurological tests, such as MRI based ones, the next step required would be provision of an account of how the NMC might be orchestrated by arousal and attention. If things ever get as far as this, it is likely that global workspace theory (e.g. Baars and McGovern, 1996) will be found to play an essential part in the account. In view of the reciprocality noted earlier between holograms and fractals, Bieberich's (2002) description of how a fractal neural anatomy might provide the basis for a suitably flexible workspace could prove especially relevant. Should it pass this next hurdle, the Nagelian theory would then face the still greater challenge of explaining why conscious contents take the form that they do. Why is red usually experienced as red, for example, and not as the sound of a bell? After all, the phenomenon of synaesthesia shows that colour can occasionally be experienced as sound. The seed of an answer to this question may lie buried within an understanding of what it is to be a hologram, but trying to cultivate the seed at this stage would clearly be premature.
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(That last source was an especially large document... even selectively choosing the important areas to read makes for large excerpt.)



So there you have it. Consciousness, as explained by Cognitive Neuroscience (believe me, the above is only the tip of the iceberg in understanding Consciouness), is compatible with Materialism. The Split-Brain studies really damage the Philosophy of Dualism.

Again, there isn't much difference between Cognition and digestion, both can be widdled down to a set (a very large set) of Materialistic Functions. Consciousness derives from matter.


That section wore me out a bit, I'll make short response to the rest of the post...

By your own definition you say consciousness is awareness that is aware of itself. It is not just awareness, which a motion detector, for instance, can be said to be (since it can be aware of motion).

You are making an error: There is a distinct differenciation between "awareness" and "perception". The Motion Detector percieves stimuli, but is no consciously aware of them.

The key, the really big deal is that, consciousness knows that it knows, and then learns and understands (and I might add that with humans anyway it can make reflective choices). And that's just the intelligence side of things. What about love, appreciation, compassion, courage, etc. What physical laws have you ever seen that would make you think they could produce those qualities?

Physical laws? I hope you are not talking about Physics. The "Laws" so to speak would be described in Neurobiology.

There is nothing special about functions of love, courage, compassion, etc., all of those are handled in the brain's Limbic System. While the functions themselves are nothing more special than the functions of digestion, its the experience of those functions which are. The experience of those functions creates an illusion that they are so innately "special", that they could not be explained by simple Materialistic principles. However, Materialism describes the nature of Reality, Psychology describes the nature of what is commonly called the "mind". Its important to keep that in mind.

So far, all I've ever seen matter and physical processes produce is dry, uncaring mechanical behavior. So far, all we get from matter and physical processes is dumbness. And computers? Awesome computing power, but dumb as a post nonetheless.

You are exercising a personal judgement in a manner which you create a Strawman Argument, this is specifically called the Fallacy of Personal Incredulity. Its where you make judgements of the likelyhood of events based on personal opinions. Anytime you hear someone say "I find X to be so incredibly unlikely... X couldn't have happened" (you find this a lot in people who's religious beliefs blind them accepting Evolution).

When you deny Materialist Monism because you don't know what "Physical Laws" explain Consciousness, you are exercising the Fallacy of Personal Incredulity. And simply because I can't stress this enough, the systems involved in Consciousness are not comparable to the systems involved on Individual atoms. Its like asking how a bicycle can move side to side if you reduce the bicycle system down to chain and sprockets.

So where are we to look in matter and physical processes for this alleged ability to produce consciousness?

The brain.

Nonsense. I can explain it perfectly well. Let's take light as an analogy. If you use a projector to pass light through a moving film, the light takes the shape of the the images on the film and is projected onto a screen. The quality of the projection depends entirely on all the physical apparatus behind the projection even though the projection itself is entirely light!

If your electric current isn't "clean" that affects the image, and the same is true if the bulb is weak, or if the projector runs unsteadily, or if the film is dirty or poorly developed . . . in fact, the light itself has virtually nothing to do with the quality of that projection.

If you destroy the projector, or its power supply, you "kill" the projection, but did you kill the light? True, that light cannot now be part of that projector's projections, but the light contines on. And even though you slowed it down, and gave it characteristics, guess what it does once it gets back in space? It resumes its original nature and returns to light speed.

In that analogy, light has it's own inherent nature, and although you can manipulate it in many ways, you cannot destroy it and you cannot alter its true nature as light. Yet, while part of a physical system, that system has the ability to affect it substantially.

First, make sure you don't overliteralize your analogy. You were just on the verge of doing so.

However, have you looked into the Split-Brain studies? I have them referenced above. Apparently, their are several "consciousnesses" which all work in unison to form one big complicated machine, but those "consciousnesses" can be isolated. How does Dualism describe that?

When you go to sleep, you cease being conscious. How does Dualism cope with that?

Okay, demonstrate that.

Very well...

Insects have a Cerebral Ganglion, they have what is called a "Neural Net" which stretches across the whole of their body (i.e. They have no - or a very limited - centralized nervous system). Insects have no cognitive ability. That means they cannot think, plan ahead, reason, use logic, or feel pain (dont kill them for pleasure regardless of whether they feel pain, its not nice and I'm very into animal rights). Insects are not self-aware (i.e. They are not "conscious").

Insects lack the proper structures to calibrate Consciousness.

Because insects are not conscious, they function like machines. The behavior of insects is alien in the eyes of a human (the reason for that is due to Personal Incredulity... we are judging the bugs by "human standards").

There are 100s of examples I could cite to demonstrate the machine-like nature of insects, here is possibly my favorite example:


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[Yahweh]

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And excerpt from Richard Dawkin's "River Out of Eden":

[excerpt]

Wasps themselves were the subject of a classic experiment, originally done by the great French naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre and repeatedby various other workers, including members of Tinbergen's school. The female digger wasp returns to her burrow carrying her stung and paralyzed prey. She leaves it outside the burrow while she enters, apparently to check that all is well before she reappears to drag the prey in. While she is in the burrow, the experimenter moves the prey a few inches away from where she left it. When the wasp resurfaces, she notices the loss and quickly relocates the prey. She then drags it back to the burrow entrance. Only a few seconds have passed since she inspected the inside of the burrow. We think that there is really no good reason why she should not proceed to the next stage in her routine, drag the prey in and be done with it. But her program has been reset to an earlier stage. She dutifully leaves the prey outside the burrow again and goes inside for yet another inspection. The experimenter may repeat the charade forty times, until he gets bored. The wasp behaves like a washing machin that has been set back to an early stage in its program and doesn't "know" that it has already washed those clothes forty times without a break. The distinguished computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter has adopted a new adjective, "sphexish," to label such inflexible, mindless automatism. (Sphex is the name of one representitive genus of digger wasp.)

[/excerpt]

When someone gives an immaterial explanation for a material process, they err. At the very least they are failing to recognize the distinct properties and behaviors of matter.

I agree. These explanations are called "supernatural" or "metaphysical" explanations. While they may explain an occurence, they do nothing to explain accurately.

From Skepdic.com - Ad hoc hypotheses:

[excerpt]

Finally, rejecting explanations that require belief in occult, supernatural or paranormal forces in favor of simpler and more plausible explanations is called applying Occam's razor. It is not the same as ad hoc hypothesizing. For example, let's say I catch you stealing a watch from a shop. You say you did not steal it. I ask you to empty your pockets. You agree and pull out a watch. I say, "Aha!, I was right. You stole the watch." You reply that you did not steal the watch, but you admit that it was not in your pocket when we went into the store. I ask you to explain how the watch got into your pocket and you say that you used telekinesis: you used your thoughts to transport the watch out of a glass case into your pocket. I ask you to repeat the act with another watch and you say "ok." Try as you will, however, you cannot make a watch magically appear in your pocket. You say that there is too much pressure on you to perform or that there are too many bad vibes in the air for you to work your powers. You have offered an ad hoc hypothesis to explain away what looks like a good refutation of your claim. My hypothesis that the watch is in your pocket because you stole it, is not an ad hoc hypothesis. I have chosen to believe a plausible explanation rather than an implausible one. Likewise, given the choice between believing that my headache went away of its own accord or that it went away because some nurse waved her hands over my hand while chanting a mantra, I will opt for the former every time.

It is always more reasonable to apply Occam's razor than to offer speculative ad hoc hypotheses just to maintain the possibility of something supernatural or paranormal.

[/excerpt]

Here is another example of an Immaterial explanation failed:

From Skepdic.com - Charle's Tart:

[excerpt]

Tart explains how he first got interested in the paranormal in the following story told at a talk he gave in Casper, Wyoming:

There was a time, years ago, when I was highly skeptical of any paranormal claims of any kind. One of the things that convinced me that there must be something to this is a strange experience that I personally went through. It was wartime. I was at Berkeley, California, and everybody was working overtime...the young lady who was my assistant at the time worked with me until very late this one night. She finally went home; I went home. Then the very next day she came in, all excited...She reported that during this night she had suddenly sat bolt upright in her bed, convinced that something terrible had happened. “I had a terrible sense of foreboding,” she said, but she did not know what had happened. “I immediately swung out of bed and went over to the window and looked outside to see if I could see anything that might have happened like an accident. I was just turning away from the window and suddenly the window shook violently. I couldn’t understand that. I went back to bed, woke up the next morning and listened to the radio.” A munitions ship at Port Chicago had exploded. It literally took Port Chicago off the map. It leveled the entire town and over 300 people were killed...She said she had sensed the moment when all these people were snuffed out in this mighty explosion. How would she have suddenly become terrified, jumped out of bed, gone to the window, and then - from 35 miles away, the shock wave had reached Berkeley and shook the window? (Randi 1992)[/size]

There is no need to perceive this event as paranormal, according to James Randi, who tape-recorded the story. A shock wave travels at different speeds through the ground and through the air. The difference over 35 miles would be about 8 seconds. Most likely the shaking Earth woke up the young lady in a fright and 8 seconds later the window shook. She and Tart assumed that the explosion took place when the window shook, making her experience inexplicable by the known laws of physics. This explanation only makes sense, however, if one ignores the known laws of physics.

[/excerpt]

When someone gives an material explanation for something that does not behave as matter, they err. At the very least they are in far too big a hurry to attribute every damn thing to materiality.

Unfortunately, I know of nothing that exists (and the existence is known and accepted) that cannot be explained in terms of matter and natural phenomena. If you could name an example, I would appreciate that.

You and I both know that anything you want to label consciousness is going to have rise above its algorithms. I don't think anybody will be fooled long, no matter how intricate the programming, into believing something is conscious when it is not. So if you (or the ever-confident Dennet) can create it, please do. Enough talk, let's see it! But until you or someone does it, you don't really know what causes consciousness do you?

The brain "causes" consciousness. Its whatever "causes" radioactive decay that I'm still trying to figure out...

Because other functions of the body are stupid, blind mechanics. Can you say that about consciousness?

Fallacy of Personal Incredulity. You are making an inaccurate judgement of consciousness based on personal convictions.

That analogy using light above isn't so far off from what a lot of people believe happens with humans, and probably animals too. That some undifferentiated pool of consciousness is drawn into the body, and "projected" by it to create the image we call "self." Maybe the body individuates us from the generality of that pool, which means since we are not individuals when we enter into the body, we really are very dependent on it to project us and individuate us.

Whether or not there is a way to escape that dependence is a well-know area of great interest to immaterialists.

Well, I'll put it this way: I have spent a great deal of my life learning as much as I absolutely can fit into the machine inside my skull.

If you wish to come to the JREF messageboards, I invite you to do so. Although I've put in a great deal of time and effort studying things such as this, there are plenty of people there, many of which are brighter than myself.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Yahweh
Well, I'll put it this way: I have spent a great deal of my life learning as much as I absolutely can fit into the machine inside my skull.

If you wish to come to the JREF messageboards, I invite you to do so. Although I've put in a great deal of time and effort studying things such as this, there are plenty of people there, many of which are brighter than myself. [/B]

What makes you think I need all that elementary neuroscience, lectures about Occams Razor, thoroughly misapplied fallacy accusations, and the refutations of paranormal claims as though I ever suggested they had validity? You know, there are informed people who look at the evidence and come to different opinions than yours.

Although you've changed your handle here again, your debating tactics are exactly the same. Whether you call yourself Yahweh or logical atheist or biologyforums, you can't hide your love for only your own opinions, your false representation of yourself, and your overall lack of integrity in debating. But don't worry, if they let you stay this time I won't be bothering you again.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Jimmy
Maybe the question could be put like this:

Does information exist? Is our perception, when you get right down to it, just based on information?

I'm going to define information in a general way by stating that it is the relationships between physical entities. All information depends on physical objects and processes. Some of our descriptions of "physical" objects are pretty abstract in their own right.

I don't have a problem with linking sense perception to physicalness, but I don't think sense perception is all there is to my consciousness (I am assuming you used the word "perception" loosely for consciousness). What about my experience of joy sitting here right now that has nothing to do with any external information? I am experiencing an inner part of myself, and it makes me feel good. In fact, if I become too dependent on external information for my sense of well-being, I find myself at the mercy of external conditions for my happiness.

Now, with all sorts of wonderfully complicated stuff to think about and master ("information"), how could someone put self-contained happiness next to it for consideration as crucial to consciousness? Well, this is one of the several reasons why materialists and immaterialists tend to disagree. We debate about what are, and how to prioritize, human potenitals.

Originally posted by Jimmy
So what is it that extracts the "original" information that is present in the brain of the listener? And what was the original information? Was it physical relationships between things or are those relationships purely abstract?

In the situation you set up, that of trading information through the senses, I would have to say you are right to characterize that flow as physical. But there is more than that going on there, and this brings up another reason why materialists and immaterialists tend to disagree.

Let's say you attend a Nutcracker ballet this Christmas. To see and hear it requires that physical information be available for perception, as you say. In your body are sense organs built to capture the information, and then in the brain is a system for experiencing that information. So beyond all doubt, physical information must be utilized for a human to experience a Nutcracker ballet.

But is that all you are going to experience? Do you go there to keep track of variations in wavelengths of sound and light? Do you take an oscilliscope to help you? Do you go there to analyze it all?' Of course you can do that, and there is even practical value in understanding the physical side of how information is exchanged in such a setting (for designing the accoustics of theatres, for instance).

Another whole realm of experience is available too, and that is appreciation. Yes, to perceive the ballet is physical-dependent, but that isn't why you are going there. You are going to appreciate. So if in a discussion you want to boil everything down to the mechanics of how you got the information that gave you an opportunity to apprciate, I would have to say you are so fascinated with mechanics that you rather do that than apprecaite the ballet.

I will take appreciation for myself. And think about it, if we could not enjoy or care about information, we'd never seek it! A computer couldn't care less about whether it has information or not, and doesn't care whether it lives or dies, and it doesn't care if you set it up to repeat 2 + 2 = 4 over and over again until it wears itself out doing it.

That ability to care, to appreciate, to want to learn and grow, to love, to be courageous . . . all this is something different, I believe, from the mechanices of the physical system and universe in which I now find myself. The relevance of the physical side is undeniable, but it isn't all there is to consciousness.

 

[Jimmy]

LW Sleeth,

I was using the term 'perception' loosely. My post did seem to focus mostly on the physical aspects of consciousness and the transfer of information. I was not, however, trying to push the idea of pure materialism. I was trying to convey the idea that information, after you examine the physical processes behind it, is abstract. I don't believe that the physical aspects of our brains alone can explain consciousness/awareness and especially self-awareness. Like I asked before, what is it that extracts the information that is represented by the neurons and how they operate together? We have all this information that is constantly being sampled and integrated by the brain. I think the mind exists because of the complex relationships of its physical parts. The parts are physical. There are definitely physical interactions taking place between the parts. The relationships that exist between those parts are abstract. An analogy is the relationship between hardware and software. The hardware is certainly important but without the software, what good is it? The software or information is abstract. The brain is more than just the sum of its parts. If you have a computer in which the ram is just filled with random data, it's not going to do much. You have the hardware, you have data. but it's dead. On the other hand, if the ram contains actual program software, then you definitely have more than the first case. Physically, both systems are equivalent because you have the hardware and data. The important thing is the relationships that exist in the data itself. I would say that software is more than just the bits that make it up. Our minds as well.

LW Sleeth: Another whole realm of experience is available too, and that is appreciation. Yes, to perceive the ballet is physical-dependent, but that isn't why you are going there. You are going to appreciate. So if in a discussion you want to boil everything down to the mechanics of how you got the information that gave you an opportunity to appreciate, I would have to say you are so fascinated with mechanics that you rather do that than appreciate the ballet.

Your mis-perception of what I believe is my fault. I was in a rush and didn't have the time to focus on the abstract side of consciousness and mind. I do love physics and I do love to model physical reality because I believe it is important. I do not want to boil everything down to mechanics, however. I appreciate beauty as you refer to it. I also appreciate beauty on other levels as well. There is beauty and symmetry in physics.

On a side note: I think about these things frequently but I have not studied neurology or consciousness formally. The things I am saying are no doubt oversimplified and maybe just plain wrong. Forgive me if I use terms loosely. I was intrigued by this discussion and wanted to partake in the discussion. I won't be offended if people point out my mistakes. That's why I'm here discussing this topic. I want to learn.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Jimmy
I was using the term 'perception' loosely. My post did seem to focus mostly on the physical aspects of consciousness and the transfer of information.

Hmmmmm, I think I must have really misinterpreted your point. I am embarrassed to say I still don't fully understand it. I assumed you were doing a sort of human mind - computer analogy. I might have been thrown off when I saw the word "information."

Originally posted by Jimmy
I was not, however, trying to push the idea of pure materialism.

Although I love to dispute the principles of materialist philosophy, I think there are people who have good reasons for thinking it is true. My biggest objections so far have been people's debating tactics and their objectivity. It's perfectly fine with me if someone wants to be a materialist, an immaterialist, or anything in between as long as they debate fairly and objectively.

Originally posted by Jimmy
Like I asked before, what is it that extracts the information that is represented by the neurons and how they operate together?

I did notice that, and wondered what you were saying there. To me, what/whomever it is that is "extracting" is what makes me most interested in consciousness.

Originally posted by Jimmy
I was trying to convey the idea that information, after you examine the physical processes behind it, is abstract. I don't believe that the physical aspects of our brains alone can explain consciousness/awareness and especially self-awareness.

I think this is where I need more explanation. Do you mean its abstractness suggests it is the interpreting element of consciousness that makes that abstraction something conscious?

Originally posted by Jimmy
On a side note: I think about these things frequently but I have not studied neurology or consciousness formally. The things I am saying are no doubt oversimplified and maybe just plain wrong. Forgive me if I use terms loosely. I was intrigued by this discussion and wanted to partake in the discussion. I won't be offended if people point out my mistakes. That's why I'm here discussing this topic. I want to learn.

You are doing fine as far as I'm concerned. I hope you didn't take my way of debating (which is to rather intensely line up everything I can in support of my postion ) as a criticism of you. I assumed from certain things you said in your post you were arguing in support of the materialist view; and so, in the spirit of debate, I challenged your points (as I understood them).

 

[Jimmy]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
Hmmmmm, I think I must have really misinterpreted your point. I am embarrassed to say I still don't fully understand it. I assumed you were doing a sort of human mind - computer analogy. I might have been thrown off when I saw the word "information."

Like I said earlier, your misinterpretation is my fault. I wasn't exactly clear. No need for embarrassment. :)

As far as "information", I'm just using that as a general term to represent the relationships between physical objects. I know I'm bandying that phrase around quite a bit. Take my earlier example of speech. The physical process that describe sound and the air molecules themselves are important. But when we speak, what's really important are the ideas we are trying to convey. The words we speak set up a complex array of sound waves but the original idea is 'riding' along on those waves in an abstract sense. The sounds would be meaningless to someone who didn't speak the same language.
Does that make any sense?

Although I love to dispute the principles of materialist philosophy, I think there are people who have good reasons for thinking it is true. My biggest objections so far have been people's debating tactics and their objectivity. It's perfectly fine with me if someone wants to be a materialist, an immaterialist, or anything in between as long as they debate fairly and objectively.

I'm not complete materialist in that sense. And I'm not trying to push a theory. I'm just talking. I've always been curious about these things. I'm really not sure where I stand. When you come right down to it, what our senses perceive about the physical world could be completely subjective. Our brains have to filter out an enormous amount of information just to be able to make sense of anything. I often wonder what's lost in the process of just looking at something. Vision is a complicated process. Light comes into the eye, triggers electro-chemical reactions, causes intricate patterns of neurons to fire. After all that, the mind has to interpret all this information. I wonder what's lost in the translation. Hell, we don't even see the thing we are looking at in a sense. We just sense the light that happens to reflect or scatter off of the object. A photon certainly isn't the same thing as the constituent particles that make up a material object. Actually, all of our senses depend on interactions of the outer electrons of atoms. Touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing.

We don't even directly sense everything that exists. Radio waves for example; We know now that they are basically the same as visible light waves at lower energy levels. We don't see them, however. In fact, we see a very narrow band of a much larger spectrum of light. The same with sound waves.

I've often wondered what it would be like to see through the eyes of someone else. Of course my mind would invalidate the experiment because everyone looks at things slightly different but I still wonder. Who can prove that we see physical things in the same way, for instance. I think generally humans are the same and would function much in the same way but how can you be sure? Take the color red, for example. You and I learned that this particular thing we see is called red (unless you're color blind). When we see an object that is red, we are able to agree on that description because we both learned through experience that that is red. You can't possibly know that what I see is the same, however. What if I see the color red like you see the color blue. We would never know. We both learned that this particular color is called red but that doesn't mean we see the 'same' thing. If that really has any meaning at all. I suppose it doesn't but I wonder. I guess it is a little far-fetched. Have I gotten completely off the track? I just enjoy this too much I guess.

I did notice that, and wondered what you were saying there. To me, what/whomever it is that is "extracting" is what makes me most interested in consciousness.

I guess 'extracting' is not a good choice of words. After it's all said and done, after all the physical processes are finished doing what they do, something still has to interpret the information. That's why I'm interested in this as well.

I think this is where I need more explanation. Do you mean its abstractness suggests it is the interpreting element of consciousness that makes that abstraction something conscious?

No, not really. I'm not suggesting that there is some special property of abstractness that lends consciousness. I'm just saying that thoughts, ideas and images we see in our mind are abstract. We need all the neurons and receptors in our brain, obviously, but they are not the thoughts, ideas, and images. Numbers written down on paper are physical representations of abstract ideas. I think what is even more abstract is how quantities in math and physics relate to each other as opposed to just the numbers themselves.

You are doing fine as far as I'm concerned. I hope you didn't take my way of debating (which is to rather intensely line up everything I can in support of my position ) as a criticism of you. I assumed from certain things you said in your post you were arguing in support of the materialist view; and so, in the spirit of debate, I challenged your points (as I understood them).

Thanks for the encouragement. I was never offended in any way by your responses. I am enjoying this too much, in fact.
Anything I say here is just for the sake of discussion. I'm not trying to shove my own view down anyone's throat. I don't really have a too much of a view one way or the other. Catch you later...

 

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
What makes you think I need all that elementary neuroscience, lectures about Occams Razor, thoroughly misapplied fallacy accusations, and the refutations of paranormal claims as though I ever suggested they had validity? You know, there are informed people who look at the evidence and come to different opinions than yours.

Sorry if I come across as an over-bearing skeptic, its not my intention to come off as intellectually repugnant.

Although you've changed your handle here again, your debating tactics are exactly the same. Whether you call yourself Yahweh or logical atheist or biologyforums, you can't hide your love for only your own opinions, your false representation of yourself, and your overall lack of integrity in debating. But don't worry, if they let you stay this time I won't be bothering you again.

You have me mixed up with somebody else.

I believe Zero can vouch for my validity.

I would be Yahweh, from the JREF forums. Yahweh is the only name I use for the JREF forums, I recently signed up for PhysicsForums under the name "Yahweh". I've only ever actively posted on the JREF boards (I've made a few stray posts on other boards), and I began posting on these boards recently as well. When the name "Yahweh" isn't available, I use the name "Yahweh of Nod". There is a Christian board I post on as well, but I don't use the handle Yahweh for it.

If you realize that you've made a mistake in your judgement in prematurely judging that I am somebody else, just post or PM me with "Oops my bad, sorry 'bout that" and we can move on.

Most people are actually pleasantly surprised when they find out who the person is behind the keyboard typing this post right now...

From Here:

I am impressed by Yahweh. There's a great number of smart, debate-worthy kids in this world, but unlike the rest of them, he holds his tongue and does not bring insults into the fray. The clean-cut style of debating, mixed with a VERY thorough background on his fave subjects, makes him an ace debater. But it's the fact he is very young that makes me so impressed. Behavior and maturity I'd expect from a 40 year old coming from a HS kid? This guy's going to be aces if he doesn't get cranky in his old age (like I feel I may).
---- Keneke

Yahweh; So young and so clever and polite. A valuable member to this forum.
---- PlindBoe

From here also:

I've been a lurker for quite a bit, and decided to register a while back, and haven't made any worthwile posts, and just decided to pop in and post here.

I'm not as brilliant as Yahweh, not as sullen as Lord Kenneth (Although I could identify with his position), but I'm a skeptical hard teen atheist, currently having a status of bum, out of school due to a long streak of depression after a lethargic fall from grace.
---- RabbiSatan

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by Mentat
What about in string theory approaches, that are background-dependent? In this case, there would be wavicles (strings) and there would also be spacetime...I wanted my definition of Materialism to fit all possible circumstances.

It doesn't matter much. If such a thing as background free string theory exists, we can still easily classify a physical object as one that exists in spacetime. A string certainly does, even if the overall relations define spacetime itself. Other things such as a wave function can be considered physical, because they are properties of spacetime.

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I don't quite see how spacetime alone covers it.

Why not? Can you think of anything in the physical world that isn't to be found in spacetime?

 

[Fliption]

I guess I should say that my real goal here is not really to define materialism. My real goal is to try to determine what the distinction is between the various views being presented here in this forum among the people using the words materialists and non-materialists. I thought that trying to get a definition of these words would help me understand the distinction. So far, no definition has been able to do that.

Originally posted by Mentat
Materialism: The belief that physical reality exists, and that there is nothing else but this physical reality. The definition of "physical" may change with scientific discovery, but whatever that definition is, that's all that exists.

Obviously, this one does not do that because it simply means everything. There is no opposing view to this. And since we know from the heated discussions in this forum there are different views, then this obviously is not the word that helps me understand the distinction.

Materialism: The belief that wavicles and spacetime exist, and that nothing else but these exists at all.

This is a better attempt but it still begs even more definitions like "wavicles" and "spacetime". So while this in the right direction. More work needs to be done. I'm almost certain that when this process ends that the resulting definition will be exactly what the first definition is. A meaningless one with no opposing view.

I'm beginning to think that the distinction has little resemblance to the old philsophical views of materialism. It would probably be good if that term were dropped completely, since it is obvious that people are using different definitions and then debating as if they are debating on the same concept.

Here is my attempt at the distinction:

I think it is similar to what Royce was saying. I think that it has more to do with what is fundamental in reality. What is the essence of the first cause? Did mindless, accidental processes create intent? Or was it the other way around? This may not be the exact distinction. But I think exploring what the distinction is and then debating it, would be more productive then continuing the silly situation that exists with the word "materialism".

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Eh
It doesn't matter much. If such a thing as background free string theory exists, we can still easily classify a physical object as one that exists in spacetime. A string certainly does, even if the overall relations define spacetime itself. Other things such as a wave function can be considered physical, because they are properties of spacetime.

Wave-functions are properties of spacetime? Also, aren't there supposed to be strings that are wound around some of the curled up dimensions of space? Doesn't this mean that there must both be energy (in the form of strings) and spacetime?

 

[Mentat]

Well, Fliption, what about if we just say that "Whatever science defines as "physical" is physical, and there is nothing else besides these things.

I just checked the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, under "Metaphysics":

Perhaps the most familiar question in metaphysics is whether there are only material entities - materialism - or only mental entities, i.e., minds and their states - idealism - or both - dualism. Here "entity" has its broadest sense: Anything real.

From this, it can be deduced that, if something "mindful" (non-physical) exists at all, then you do not have materialism (you, instead, have dualism). If, however, there is no such phenomenon as a non-physical entity, then you have actual materialism.

I mention this because your suggested distinction (whether "primary reality" is material or "mindful") is based on the assumption that some "mindful" exists at all, in which case you would have no room for actual Materialism.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by FZ+
To spare Flipton, LWSleeth, Royce et al from my rather continuous ranting on the other thread, I've set this one up so my ranting may be safely ignored.

What I think materialism is:

My form of materialism is the fundamental denial of a material immaterial distinction. All concepts thought of as immaterial are thus either material in disguise, or non-existent entities. All things that are real are material, and this reality is because it acts in a material way - by having some sort of influence on other things which make it possible to be measured or perceived. (Of course, I think Flipton believes this not to be materialism at all, so I'll be happy for anyone else to come up with a name for it.)

In short:
Material = exerting some sort of influence that renders it detectable
Reality = that which is material
Immaterial reality = contradiction in terms, as to be real, it must become material.

What do you think?

Not much. Simply because something influences something else, doesn't mean it can be measured or perceived. I'm thinking of (phenomenological) consciousness here. You cannot say it is measurable unless any observer with suitable instruments could detect it. But it cannot be detected unless you either conflate the neurological correlates of consciousness with (phenomenological)consciousness itself, or you suppose that phenomenological consciousness is a causally efficacious reality in its own right. The former presupposes materialism, the latter supposes interactionist dualism (since phenomenological consciousness is only knowable from the 1st person perspective). As a materialist you would presumably opt for the former. But what does it mean to say that phenomenological consciousness is one and the same thing as neurons firing?

Simply because consciousness might be able to affect the physical doesn't entail that consciousness is itself physical. In order to be material/physical it must be able to be discerned from the third person perspective.

Huh?? Why am I only being allowed 10,000 characters??

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Mentat
I mention this because your suggested distinction (whether "primary reality" is material or "mindful") is based on the assumption that some "mindful" exists at all, in which case you would have no room for actual Materialism.

We've been into this before. There is a difference between assigning words (semantics) and deciding what is truth. The distinction that I suggested has nothing to do with whether anything actually exist or not. The distinction is about which of the understood "concepts" comes first and caused the other.

There is no sense in claiming that assigning a word to a concept causes it to be true in reality. This view is extreme, unreasonable, and has no place in a philosphy forum. I will not spend another 12 pages debating this one again, as I am confident that enough people will agree to make this discussion productive without having to do that.

 

[Mentat]

Originally posted by Fliption
We've been into this before. There is a difference between assigning words (semantics) and deciding what is truth. The distinction that I suggested has nothing to do with whether anything actually exist or not. The distinction is about which of the understood "concepts" comes first and caused the other.

There is no sense in claiming that assigning a word to a concept causes it to be true in reality. This view is extreme, unreasonable, and has no place in a philosphy forum. I will not spend another 12 pages debating this one again, as I am confident that enough people will agree to make this discussion productive without having to do that.

I agree that this should be gotten over as quickly as possible (I don't want to go through another "why the bias against materialism" ), but I do think that, when defining terms that will deal with the very nature of reality, the use of faulty semantics could have profound implications, which is why I mentioned it. If one says that the whole distinction is based on which part of reality ("mindful" or material) is primary, one has already assumed that there is a "mindful" reality, which precludes Materialism right from the start (it would be as useless as you say my definitions are, and for the exact same reasons).

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Canute

Yahwah
The smell of a fart does not exist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


HOhohohahaha. Ahem, sorry. You're obviously not a regular user of public transport. You'll certainly make a great partner for someone one day.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The process of smelling a fart is a physical process occurring in your brain. The memory of what a fart smells like is stored in the structure of your brain. The experience of remembering what a fart smells like is a process in your brain, and so on.

When we talk about the smell of a fart, we are talking about a process as though it were an object. That is just a quirk of language, based on intuitive preconceptions which date back hundreds, and even thousands of years. It is not an indication of what the true nature of reality is.

I think I see where you are going with this. The mistake in the "primary and secondary qualities" idea is not that there is no difference between things like length, and things like color. It is that the color of an object is not a "quality" of that object at all.

The color of an object is a part of the experience you have when you see, or remember seeing, that object. It is a physical process occurring in your brain.
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What do mean here by 'an experience'? An experience of something that does not exist? The experience of the smell of a fart exists (how did I get into this?) but the smell doesn't? That makes no sense.

These are tricky issues and you've obviously thought about them a lot. But you are letting your death grip on your assumptions lead you into inconsistencies.

Yahwah just seems to be echoing Stimpson J Cat's arguments on the jref board. Stimpson specifically stated to me the smell of a fart does not exist. Go
http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25726&highlight=primary

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by Mentat
Wave-functions are properties of spacetime?

If the wave function is the probabilistic distribution of energy throughout at every point of spacetime, then yes, you can consider it a property.

Also, aren't there supposed to be strings that are wound around some of the curled up dimensions of space? Doesn't this mean that there must both be energy (in the form of strings) and spacetime?

If spacetime is nothing but the relations among strings, then there are no separate "things" here. Consider a single string. It has length as a fundamental property, but it also has energy as a property. So you could consider length and energy to both be properties of the same fundamental thing, with spacetime being the finished product. Locating a string and calling it physical based on it's location in spacetime is no different than slicing up lines on Euclids plane and calling them geometric objects.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Fliption
I guess I should say that my real goal here is not really to define materialism. My real goal is to try to determine what the distinction is between the various views being presented here in this forum among the people using the words materialists and non-materialists. I thought that trying to get a definition of these words would help me understand the distinction. So far, no definition has been able to do that.

I'm not a materialist, but it seems to be that materialism simply means that there is an ontologically self-subsistent reality which is susceptible to a mathematical description by the hard sciences, that this reality is the totality of all that exists, and that this reality, if organised in a particular way, logically entails conscious awareness.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Mentat
Well, Fliption, what about if we just say that "Whatever science defines as "physical" is physical, and there is nothing else besides these things.

Because that's a ridiculous definition. Science cannot define physical because science has nothing to say on the subject of metaphysics. Besides, science is not a conscious entity so how could science define anything? If you mean scientists, then I'm afraid they are failing to understand what the word material or physical means.

 

[Yahweh]

Good to see you, Ian.

 

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Yahwah just seems to be echoing Stimpson J Cat's arguments on the jref board. Stimpson specifically stated to me the smell of a fart does not exist. Go
http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25726&highlight=primary

In fact I am "echoing" the statements, I find them very intelligent and well thoughtout.

The point is that Stimpson is differenciating between sensations which occur in the "mind" and things which exist concretely.

Sensations (the smell of a fart) do not exist concretely (i.e. Sensations are not substances, they are not made of matter or exist in 3 dimensional space).

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Yahweh
The point is that Stimpson is differenciating between sensations which occur in the "mind" and things which exist concretely.

Sensations (the smell of a fart) do not exist concretely (i.e. Sensations are not substances, they are not made of matter or exist in 3 dimensional space). [/B]

It seems that from the pong of the humble fart we know that there exist things which are not made of matter and do not have extension. This is the problem with strict physicalism, it leaves things out.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Yahweh
In fact I am "echoing" the statements, I find them very intelligent and well thoughtout.

The point is that Stimpson is differenciating between sensations which occur in the "mind" and things which exist concretely.

Sensations (the smell of a fart) do not exist concretely (i.e. Sensations are not substances, they are not made of matter or exist in 3 dimensional space).

Ummmm...I'd have to disagree with that...odors are carried by chemicals in the air(physical) which go though the air(physical) until they reach your (physical) nose, where they cause a chemical reaction which sends a (physical) signal to your brain(which is also physical).

Where is there a non-physical event in this?

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Because that's a ridiculous definition. Science cannot define physical because science has nothing to say on the subject of metaphysics. Besides, science is not a conscious entity so how could science define anything? If you mean scientists, then I'm afraid they are failing to understand what the word material or physical means.

Since no one else can define metaphysics, let alone measure it, what can you do?

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Zero
Ummmm...I'd have to disagree with that...odors are carried by chemicals in the air(physical) which go though the air(physical) until they reach your (physical) nose, where they cause a chemical reaction which sends a (physical) signal to your brain(which is also physical).

Where is there a non-physical event in this?

Umm, the smell?

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by Zero
Since no one else can define metaphysics, let alone measure it, what can you do?

It's perfectly easy to define metaphysics. It's the study of what lies beyond science.